HIMYM: Walk of shame

Brief spoilers for "How I Met Your Mother" coming up just as soon as I disinfect my couch...

Confidence in season... rising. I don't know that this one was as funny as last week's flashback-packed episode, but that's two in a row that reminded me of a conversation I once had with Craig Thomas. I was asking him about the way he and Bays and the other writers like to play with time and unreliable narration, and he said something like, "We like to do episodes that only we would do," if that makes any sense. Several of the episodes from the start of the season felt like they could have been slightly-altered scripts from a half-dozen '90s NBC sitcoms, where these last two have felt uniquely "HIMYM."

Last week obviously played up the chronological comedy, where here what worked were the focus on Marshall and the use of one social ritual (job recruitment) appearing indistinguishable from another (seduction) -- all of it conveniently explained to us by Barney.

The Porno Ted plot probably could have been done on other shows, but the presence of Barney -- and the echoes of "Slap Bet" -- still made it feel specific to this show.

My only complaint -- assuming it's not being done intentionally to mess with viewers like me -- is that, just as Busy Philipps showed up without getting a single scene with Jason Segel, John Cho comes and goes without getting to bounce off Neil Patrick Harris for the "Harold & Kumar" reunion. What's next: Nicholas Brendon plays Robin's new boyfriend in another one of those completely self-contained B-plots that doesn't feature any of the other actors?